The UKZN Strategic Plan Document states that teaching and research must be linked to community engagement. Through my teaching I have engaged with communities both nationally and internationally.

High Schools

In 2013, I was invited to Hilton College to address the Grade 11’s and 12’s on research methodology. The pedagogical skills required in a high school are certainly different from that in a higher education context. Nevertheless, my engagement with the students was appreciated by the Director of Academics who reflected on my presentation in a letter of gratitude (See APPENDIX N1). I was also invited to speak at the Inanda Seminary launch of a book “A World of Their Own: A History of South African Women’s Education.” by Harvard historian Megan Healy-Clancy Again – it was important here to inspire the girls and to “translate” some of my feminist discourse for them to understand, while doing a review of the book (See Appendix N2).

Local University

At my own university, my critical reflections on my teaching practice as was submitted in a teaching portfolio for promotion in 2010 was so highly regarded by the panel that I was asked to share my experience of compiling the portfolio with the wider erstwhile Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences. (See APPENDIX O for the full presentation).

National Media

My teaching has also had impact within the media. In 2010, my class on masculinities and religion drew the attention of the national media who came to film one of the classes. This was eventually aired on SABC2 Spiritual Revival in the Issues of Faith Series (Appendix P - DVD available for viewing on request).

Popular International Education Initiatives

The methodology she promotes commonly known as Contextual Bible Study (CBS) is now widely used throughout Sub-Saharan Africa to educate churches and theological institutions about the linkage between sexual- and gender-based-violence and the HIV and AIDS pandemic. As a result churches in the Global North are beginning to take note of this effective, empowering and socially transforming methodology of engaging sacred texts, cultures and religions in the context of sexual violence and the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

In 2007 I developed an entire module reading the Old Testament in contexts of HIV&AIDS. This curricula was aimed at a certificate and diploma level, and much unlearning of my “ivory-tower” academic language had to occur before I could develop the curricula for this distance learning module (APPENDIX Q).

All the testimonials in Appendix T show that not only am I invited to share my teaching in other parts of the world (APPENDIX T1) through guest teaching, but my books are prescribed in many courses internationally (APPENDIX T2), and I am also invited to train people for community teaching (APPENDIX T3).

My research in the area of African feminist biblical hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) as well as liberation hermeneutics led to my developing an existing model of community engagement, known as Contextual Bible Studies (CBS) for transformation. These CBS’s have been taken up both nationally and internationally, and I am invited to facilitate these workshops and to “train the trainers.”